


Mood Indigo

by okapi



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Fluff, Inspired by Music, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:13:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24331876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: Music inspires Bertie and Jeeves.Fluff. Inspired by Duke Ellington'sMood Indigo.
Relationships: Reginald Jeeves/Bertram "Bertie" Wooster
Comments: 16
Kudos: 56





	Mood Indigo

**Author's Note:**

> For my Jeeves bingo square O-5 'first time.'

I don’t suppose anyone ever expects anything marvelously life-changing to happen on an ordinary Thursday night.

Looking back, I can’t remember anything of note occurring earlier that day, and in the evening, for no particular reason, I had elected to dine in. Jeeves had served up handsome chops and commendable parsnips. I don’t recall the meal being extraordinarily toothsome, but the plates were licked clean, nonetheless. Jeeves and I ate together as was our custom when neither of us had commitments elsewhere.

After dinner, Jeeves oiled off to the kitchen whilst I sauntered to the sitting room to study the selection of gramophone records which had been delivered that afternoon. They’d arrived from the establishment of W. A. Name, a curious bookseller who had of late begun to branch out beyond the business of the bound word. Though its proprietor gave the impression of a toad whose harrows were legion, the quarterly assortment of books (and now recorded harmonies) which reached the Wooster doorstep were always welcomed like prodigal sons, and it was exceedingly rare that any of the offerings were returned.

Brandy and soda were already dancing cheek-to-cheek in a glass tumbler when I carefully placed the wax circle on the spinner and dropped the needle. The first song was entitled Mood Indigo by Duke Ellington. I was, at that time, already an admirer of the Duke, and I would’ve greatly supported any transatlantic scheme to trade him for a few of the dukes with whom I was acquainted on the grounds that, one, he made great music and, two, he didn’t strike me as the kind who would cut a nephew out of the will for marrying a chorus girl.

I took a thoughtful sip of b. and s as the first strains rang out.

Music is a wonder. Less than a minute later, I was awash in this Mood Indigo of the Duke’s. The thump-thump-thump-thump and the accompanying humming like a flock of bluesy, recently widowed mourning doves, ushered me into another realm and, indeed, another mood.

I downed the rest of the b. and s. in a series of gulps, lit a cigarette, and crumpled into my armchair.

It suited my mood, and the Duke’s, for me to lay across the seat with my legs dangling over the arm. I even went so far as to untie my shoes, but only one Oxford was dangling from my toe when the clarinet started to play. Part of me recognised this was the quintessential pose of the idle rich, but the other part of me argued that I was, indeed, both idle and rich, so why shouldn’t I sprawl across my own furnishings if I wanted?

My attention was drawn away from spurious, if that’s the word I want, wool-gathering by the entry of the trombone.

Suddenly, it made perfect sense to me that I was the clarinet and Jeeves was the trombone. Or, perhaps, it was Jeeves who was the clarinet and I who was the trombone. Regardless, we were singing, each in his own voice, but both from the same proverbial song sheet while the thump-thump-thump-thump of life marched on.

It seemed that the faint music of Jeeves’ domesticity, the clink of cutlery, the thud of cupboard doors, the swish and squeak of the taps, was part and parcel of this Mood Indigo. Or at least the Berkley Mansions version.

The song was over too soon, and I yelped like a stricken bull pup at the silence.

“Again, sir?”

“Yes! Listen to this, Jeeves. It sounds like,” I struggled to put my feeling into words, “a sort of blue-violet happily-ever-after with chops and parsnips.”

Jeeves played the song again.

I smoked and studied the underside of Jeeves’s profile as he listened.

And then, it hit me, right when the piano was tinkling its interjection for the second time:

_I want to spend the rest of my days with Reginald Jeeves. He’s the trombone to my clarinet or the clarinet to my trombone, and that’s that._

When the song ended, I asked Jeeves what he thought of it.

“It is a remarkable song, sir. Mister Ellington is voicing the trombone at the top of its register and the clarinet at its lowest. It is a novel approach. When recorded the overtones of these two instruments produce the illusion of a fourth instrument, beyond the trumpet, which does not exist. I would say that all the instruments are muted which…”

As Jeeves prattled on, I gazed up into his eyes and had a second, or perhaps third, revelation:

_I love this man. I love every sinew and fibre of his burly being._

Then I realised that Jeeves had stopped talking and had gone a bit stuffed frog.

“Go on, Jeeves.”

One corner of his mouth quivered. “Unfortunately, I have forgot what I wished to say, sir.”

“Extraordinary. May I ask you a question?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know absolutely everything, Jeeves?”

It was then that the most remarkable thing occurred. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen an Alpine avalanche or a sheet of ice break away from a glacier and crash, but Jeeves’s face fell, not into something sober or sorrowful but rather revealing something soft and lovely underneath. He said,

“The only thing I do not know, sir, is how I’d manage to be even half as content with anything other than ‘blue-violet happily-ever-after with chops and parsnips.'" He gave a little cough then added, “That is to say, with you, sir.”

He took the cigarette, which was threatening to burn my fingers, and stubbed it out in the ash tray.

“So, it’s like that, is it?” I asked, knowing damned well it was.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I’m of the same mind, Jeeves.”

“I am gratified to hear it, sir.”

“Well, pour yourself a drink, and let’s listen to it again.”

“Very good, sir.”

I don’t suppose anyone ever expects anything marvelously life-changing to happen on an ordinary Thursday night, but sometimes, well, it just does.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
